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Ronja och Birk...

From the Swedish film based on the child-book "Ronia, The Robber's Daughter" by Astrid Lindgren. On the photo: Hanna Zetterberg Struwe, Ronia in the film, and Dan Håfström, Birk in the film. Click on the picture to go to Astrid Lindgren site.

Vuollerim 6000 years, August 2006

From the openair museum illustrating the early prehistory of Lapland; the Stone Age - very interesting, or?? I was very interested however, tiringly interested in some person's eyes?? :-) A cousin and his little son. Another one of my favorites. Click on the picture to get more information.

The end of September 2006

Me at Mallorca spring 1997.

About me

I was born in Umeå in Västerbotten, Sweden, and moved during childhood stepwise to Skåne in the south, and at last back to just below the middle of Sweden where I still live.
I am educated both as piano-pedagogue and church-musician and have a full time employment as piano-pedagogue. Church-music is side work.
I am interested in a lot of things and will blog about things I read, psychology, society, history, nature, my work too hopefully, and my everyday life… And both in Swedish and English.

Easter 2007

The cottage where mom lives, april 2007. The houses and yard are surrounded by woods on two sides. Walking round the corner you are out right into the nature, almost! Nice! The nature-loving Swedes you know... One of my uncles has constructed this cottage. It was built 1977 I think.

facebook

From the library, December 2006

Angels blowing trumpets.

More about me

I work fulltime. In a fulltime employment we have 67 pupils each week. But if we do other things the amount is reduced. I feel if it shall be fun to play myself I need to play at least 3 hours per day. Then my fingers obey and I can express things better… So I guess you can’t say I am working little. My writing is for myself in first hand; to process and express things. And here I can collect things for myself like in a library. But if people find this blog I would like to share what I read, media I have access to, as for instance teachers papers and pedagogical magazines, how the discussions are in them as the issue school and pedagogy is so big here, and of course I would also like to share music I like and find interesting and think has something to express…

A museum…

Click on the picture to go to the slideshow. Pictures are taken with my cell (mobile) phone camera.

Even more about me

I grew up in the middle-class as the oldest of six siblings coming very close. My dad was educated agronomist and worked as headmaster for agricultural schools the last 25 years of his work-life. And we grew up on agricultural schools. My mom is educated as nurse.Two of my siblings have walked in our dad's path and work as agronomists, the fourth sibling is engineer (college), the fifth occupational therapist (something with which she doesn't work as now) and the youngest is educated from school for Social workers and has a teachers education too.

My political compass

Click on the picture to get to the site where you get your political compass.

Sweden

Where Sweden is located in Europe, and the world. Click on the picture to go to the official gateway to Sweden.

Summerhill

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torsdag 6 september 2007

The first piano-lesson when one is six years…

A Peter and an Emelie, 6 years, had their first piano-lesson today. Peter turned around on the chair if he got the opportunity, and had problems to sit still!! Short legs, almost not reaching the floor!

“Have you seen that on this keyboard there are black and white keys!? Do you want to play? But there is one thing you must remember: you have to play on black keys only!!”

They sat down at the piano and I started to play an accompaniment on two chords. Both children sat there doing nothing, waiting for each others?

“I don’t know how to do!”

“Test a black key, then you’ll find that everyone suits!!”

At last they started a bit carefully.

“Now, only white keys are allowed!!”

I said.

They switched after some seconds hesitation. And back to the black keys again.

“I have a sort of riddle (rhyming in Swedish): two are black; can you see? And between them is ‘d’! Can you find 'd' now?”

Yes, they could. And we searched d:s over the whole keyboard and counted them. Found seven d:s!!

she showed her left hand. She probably gives her left hand to people when they want to shake hand with her!? :-)

At last she found her right hand, and we put the thumb on a ‘d’ we chose for ourselves. And after that all the other fingers on a white key each. The fifth finger then landed on ‘a’.

“Do you know what this tone is called? It’s ‘a’. Can you play ‘d’ and ‘a’ together?”

I showed them and they played with me. Emelie followed my rhythm (in whole notes). Peter played quarter notes, I let him, and I sang Brother John. As Emelie turned out to be left-handed I asked the children if they could find the chord (‘d’ and ‘a’ together) in the left hand too. Peter took it in both hands, so I let them both do that. And asked the mom’s to sing while we accompanied them on piano.

“Now back to your chairs!”

I said.

“Do you know, I am very careful with how my pupils are sitting at the piano.”

I told them how I think one shall sit at the piano, with the whole foot in the floor. On half the chair. They managed this.

And we let our hands hang down.

“There you have a very good hand for piano-playing, as when they are just hanging down!!! You can also think that you have a glass-ball under your hands! And now I also want to give the fingers new names, this is one.”

I started singing

“one, one, one, one, one”

in a certain rhythm and continued with all the fingers and back to the thumb, starting from the tone ‘d’.

“Now we must check at the piano. How should you sit at the piano - how was it? Oh, good! You could! Excellent! I will write something!”

On a white paper I wrote, first "d, d, e, e, f-sharp, f-sharp, e" and then "f-sharp, f-sharp, e, e, d ,d , d. " And between those I asked:

“Now where are your right hands? And where was 'd'?”

We played the melody I had written. And tried another one.

And at last I said:

“And I use to play technique exercises with all! Can you play ‘tonen d, tonen e, tonen fiss, tonen g, tonen a etc.’”

In English we played "the tone d", e, f-sharp, g and a and back stepwise to d, thus using all the five fingers. A, what we call, portato exercise, and also to start training the names of the first five notes we are going to work with.

They did, but it wasn’t easy! I had forgotten how small 6-years olds actually are! :-)

When we had done this our 40 minutes had passed! So we said “Hi” to each others, after Emelie’s mom knew what piano-book to buy and Peter had shown the first bars of "The Final Countdown" which mom and dad had shown him.